Agency ends ticket giveaways to lawmakers amid ethics...

1of2Rep. Craig Eiland, D-Galveston, talks to journalists outside the House Chamber on Thursday, July 7, 2005, in Austin, Texas. Rep. Eiland was one of the Democrats who was found to be absent from the chamber Wednesday evening and whose vote was deleted. He had been in the House earlier in the day, but had caught a flight to Rhode Island to preside over the National Conference of Insurance Legislators, of which he is president. (AP Photo/Harry Cabluck)Photo: HARRY CABLUCK, STF

AUSTIN - When the corner man for boxer Carlos Molina jumped into the Reliant Arena ring before the 10th round in a 2012 fight - prompting disqualification and thunderous boos from the packed crowd - few spectators had a better view than a trio of state lawmakers.

They were part of a long line of lawmakers, agency employees and other guests who for years have enjoyed free "technical zone" passes at boxing matches and other combative sporting events.

Now, after facing questions about the ethics of the free passes at a Senate Finance Committee hearing, the agency is quietly ending the practice of giving those passes away.

The move will end a decades-old rule of giveaways that have gone to contractors, TDLR employees and their guests, including lawmakers, for fights such as the 2012 Golden Boy event featuring junior middleweight James Kirkland vs. Carlos Molina, and the 2013 Top Rank event featuring former WBO lightweight champion Mikey Garcia vs. Juan Manuel Lopez.

More than three dozen Texas legislators have been invited to sit in the premier seats at various boxing matches and UFC events since 2012, according to records obtained under the Freedom of Information Act by the San Antonio Express-News.

Conflict of interest?

Among those who were invited were current and former members of the House Licensing and Administrative Procedures Committee, including Senfronia Thompson and Rep. Roland Gutierrez, D-San Antonio, who currently sits on the oversight panel.

Thompson was unavailable for comment. A spokesperson for Gutierrez said he would support any changes the agency makes.

Craig McDonald, director for Texans for Public Justice, said a state agency giving freebees to lawmakers who were overseeing them creates a huge conflict of interest.

"The ringside seat is not the view legislators need to oversee the agency," McDonald said.

Normally, when lawmakers receive tickets to sporting events, such as basketball and football games, lobbyists are required to report the gifts to the Texas Ethics Commission. In the case of this state agency, there is no public trail because they are not required to report it.

"This goes under the radar," McDonald said. "There's an issue of transparency as well as conflict."

But many lawmakers who have been invited to sit in the ringside seats believe there is no conflict of interest when voting on bills that deal with the agency. They said it gives them the opportunity to understand how the agency is run.

Eiland and Hamilton, the former state representatives who both attended the Kirkland vs. Molina match, agreed that it was a learning experience.

Hamilton, who was the chair of the Licensing and Administrative Procedure panel, said he was not just there to watch a boxing match.

"It was purely a fact-finding mission to see what was going on," Hamilton said.

Eiland said it helped him understand what the department actually does.

"You don't know what really goes on in licensing and regulation unless you can see it up close," Eiland said.

The agency's executive director, William Kuntz, sent out a memo restricting who could sit in the seats after the issue was brought to light by Sen. Larry Taylor, R-Friendswood, at a Senate Finance panel hearing in February.

Promoters unhappy

Effective immediately, TDLR employees assigned to work events will no longer be allowed to bring guests into the area close to the ring.

Taylor said the issue was brought to his attention by various promoters of combative sports who were unhappy that they had to provide front row seats for agency guests.

"Frankly, I don't think it looks good for Texas," Taylor said. "The promoters were certainly not happy about it."

According to Kuntz, the agency has been inviting guests to sit in the seats since well before he was hired as executive director in 1999. In some cases, lawmakers and other guests contact the agency to acquire tickets, and he said this was the first time he has heard of any concern about the policy.

Kuntz said he immediately made changes to the policy when Taylor voiced his concern in the Senate hearing.

"As agency director I'm responsive to the indications or the directions I'm receiving from the Legislature," Kuntz said.

After the Senate Finance hearing, Taylor authored a provision that was adopted into the agency's budget that requires the department to submit a quarterly "Combative Sports Attendance Report" to the Legislature.

Taylor said he was not concerned about the ethics of legislators sitting in these seats.

Nicole Cobler is a reporting intern for the Houston Chronicle’s Austin Bureau. She is a senior at the University of Texas at Austin where she studies journalism. She previously worked as a reporting fellow at the Texas Tribune and as an investigative reporting fellow with News21 at Arizona State University. She also interned for the Austin American-Statesman and the Austin Bureau of the San Antonio Express-News.